Charter schools' 'Uberization' of teaching profession hurts kids too
Earlier this month, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited two of the highest performing charter schools in New Orleans and praised the city as a “great example” for education reform. It’s not a surprise that DeVos chose New Orleans for her visit. The Trump administration has championed charter schools, and researchers have shown that the school reforms in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina have improved student outcomes. But these reforms are not the best we can do.
Charter schools—publicly funded, but privately managed organizations that are typically released from many district regulations and union contracts—have rapidly expanded in urban areas across the U.S. over the last three decades. In New Orleans, over 90 percent of public school students now attend charter schools. In Detroit and Washington, D.C., half of all public school students do. Several other cities are emulating New Orleans, working to bring charter schools ‘to scale’ so that they make up the majority of schools in an area.
But New Orleans has a long way to go before its schools provide a high-quality education to all students, at least one that is worth emulating.
Even reformers in the city commonly say that most schools there are no longer failing, but they have only improved from an “F” to a “C.” The hard work is going from a “C” to an “A.” That requires hiring and retaining the best teachers. But the deregulated hiring practices that are characteristic of the charter movement may actually make it difficult for schools, in New Orleans and elsewhere, to ever reach that “A.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/education/411750-charter-schools-uberization-of-teaching-profession-hurts-kids-too
